UFC no longer fighting for its life

By Jeff Haney (contact)

Monday, Feb. 5, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.

Randy Couture, a member of the Ultimate Fighting Championship Hall of Fame, recalls the moment he realized professional mixed martial arts would never again be pigeonholed as a niche sport, a curiosity or a novelty act.

It was Nov. 2, 2001, after the UFC 34 card at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, when Couture sensed the UFC was poised to become an American phenomenon.

"I beat a fighter named Pedro Rizzo," Couture, a two-time UFC heavyweight champion, said. "After the postfight press conference, I was walking up Studio Walk so I could get to the elevator and back up to my room.

"There were so many fans waiting out there, it took me 3 1/2 hours just to get to the elevator. I wasn't expecting that. That was when it dawned on me - things have changed."

Since then, the size of UFC crowds in Las Vegas and elsewhere have doubled or even tripled from the 4,295 announced at the MGM that night. Pay-per-view sales and UFC fans' rabid devotion to their favorite fighters have spiked along with the attendance figures.

"I think one of the things that fans love about this sport is how approachable the athletes are," said Couture, who will come out of a yearlong retirement to fight on a UFC card next month in Columbus, Ohio.

And so it was Saturday at Mandalay Bay hours before the main card of the evening's UFC 67 began, and well before the doors to the Events Center arena even opened.

It took just one frantic word from a fan to a couple of buddies - "Chuck!" - to generate an intense frenzy of activity, complete with dozens of cell-phone cameras, around UFC star Chuck Liddell as the reigning light heavyweight champ made his way along the concourse.

Not long after Liddell disappeared into a side exit behind Stripsteak restaurant, heavyweight champ Tim Sylvia created a similar manic response as he walked toward the arena's entrance, stopping every 1 1/2 steps and spinning this way and that as he posed for photographs.

Neither Liddell nor Sylvia was on Saturday night's card; both were attending as ambassadors for the sport - and as fans.

Much like Dennis and Monica Parker, who plan their trips to Las Vegas from Lake Arrowhead, Calif., around UFC shows.

"Fans really appreciate the athletes because they know how much hard work and dedication it takes to compete," Monica Parker, who trains in martial arts herself, said. "It's not like some macho thing, where they say, 'OK, we're going to fight. I'm going to beat you up.' It takes a lot of training, and you really have to be prepared to compete."

Pedro Cebulka, a self-professed UFC freak who is a native of Germany and lives in Canada, dressed for the occasion in a leopard-print dress shirt, yellow cargo pants and a "Brasil" bandana to honor middleweight champion Anderson Silva, who beat Travis Lutter in Saturday night's headliner.

"I drove 20 hours straight down from Canada to get here," Cebulka said. "UFC is the best sport there is, and they put on the best shows in sports."

Cebulka was hanging out with a Texan who said he goes only by "Truckin' Ron" and that he was attending his fifth UFC card. Although he was disappointed welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre was not fighting - St. Pierre pulled out of a scheduled bout due to an injury - Truckin' Ron was looking forward to the UFC debuts of mixed martial arts stars Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Mirko Cro Cop.

"I used to like boxing, but I got into UFC because boxing sucks," Truckin' Ron said.

Marc Ratner oversaw boxing in the state for years before leaving the Nevada State Athletic Commission to join the UFC's executive office.

"The major difference between this crowd and a boxing crowd is that at 5 o'clock, when you get here for the first fight, the arena is probably half to three-quarters full," Ratner said at Saturday night's show, which drew 10,787 to the Events Center. "That's a big difference. When you go to a big (boxing) fight, the crowd gets there at 7 o'clock."

And by the time the main, five-fight card at a UFC event begins, the arena is just about full. Although UFC crowds skew younger compared with boxing, they also have money to spend in the casino, Ratner said.

"The demo is 18 to 35," Ratner said. "I look around here and I see people getting very excited. I think the (loud, driving rock) music is a big part of it. It's a fun night. It's a good event for the hotels and for the town.

"We get primarily a Southern California crowd. I would think there's more out-of-town people than locals (attending) right now, but the local audience is growing. I've talked to the hotel (officials) here, and they seem to get a bump (in casino revenue) when the UFC is in town. ...

"Certainly the beer sales are very good."

As the UFC has grown in popularity, so has the price of its tickets, with Saturday's ranging from $50 to $750 - a scale that rivals a boxing megafight's.

As with any audience drawn to a hand-to-hand combat show, a portion of the fan base can get rowdy or bloodthirsty. The UFC does retain an element of brutality left over from its lawless days years ago - Travis Lutter, Silva's opponent Saturday, goes by the unfortunate nickname "The Serial Killer." (In fairness, it comes from his quiet and reserved demeanor, but still.)

"You do have some brutality and violence, of course, but it's much better now than it was in the early days," fan Tracy Johnson of Las Vegas said. "They have rules and regulations and the different weight classes. It's not like real small guys are fighting against the biggest guys."

In a bit of a surprise, "Rampage" Jackson's second-round stoppage of Marvin Eastman elicited boos from an impatient crowd Saturday night. In a decent light heavyweight fight, whenever the pace slowed momentarily, it sounded like Santa Claus was making an appearance in South Philadelphia.

"This sport is so tough, and so technical, it takes years for these guys to become good at it," UFC president Dana White said. "We get a lot of fans who show up and understand the sport and understand what's going on when (the fighters) are on the ground, and what's going on when they're in clinches. And a lot of (fans) don't."

Jackson did bring the fans to their feet just before the fight when he engaged Eastman in a nose-to-nose staredown.

"You have to put on a show," Jackson said. "It's a show, baby."

As Couture well knows, this show will go on.

"Ever since that night (more than five years ago), especially on nights that I'm fighting, I always make sure I'm aware of some alternate routes to get back to my hotel room," he said.